Carlos Barria | Reuters
U.S. National Economic Director Gary Cohn (L) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin arrive to unveil the Trump administration’s tax reform proposal in the White House briefing room in Washington, U.S, April 26, 2017.
Stocks like Apple with large overseas cash hoards pared their gains Wednesday after Trump’s tax plan failed to reveal a specific rate for repatriating overseas profits.
Ahead of the Wednesday afternoon announcement, an administration official told Reuters the proposal would include a sharp reduction in the tax rate from the current 35 percent to 10 percent for repatriation of profits — overseas earnings brought back to the U.S.
The memo from the White House just stated, “one-time tax on trillions of dollars held overseas.”
“The market had big expectations. They were expecting a lot of specifics and a specific rate on repatriation and they’re not getting it,” said Lawrence McDonald, author of “The Bear Traps Report” newsletter.
The repatriation tax “is definitely coming, they just don’t want to show their whole hand to the Democrats,” he said.
Apple shares intraday performance (beginning from around noon ET)
Source: FactSet
Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Cisco and Oracle are the five companies with the largest overseas cash holdings, according to an April 17 note by S&P Global Ratings’ Andrew Chang.
— CNBC’s John Melloy contributed to this report.
